Encouraging law students to pursue public interest careers

By Diane CurtisStaff Writer

Help may be on the way for law school graduates who would like to pursue a
public interest law career but feel they can’t afford it.

The ABA and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) are pushing for
federal legislation giving a variety of tax breaks, loan forgiveness and alternative
repayment programs for law school graduates who choose the public service route.
At the same time, law school administrators, including Boalt Hall School of
Law Dean Christopher Edley and his staff, are doing what they can to give graduates
of the Berkeley law school the option of choosing a public interest law career.

According to the American Bar Association, graduates leave law school with
undergraduate and graduate studies debt of more than $80,000, which translates
into more than $1,000 a month in loan payments. When public interest salaries
average about $36,000 a year, many graduates say they have no choice but to
go for the lucrative, private-firm jobs.

A new loan forgiveness program at Boalt, which Edley described as “in
many respects the most generous in the nation,” received 80 applications
for the first Nov. 15 application deadline. All those who meet the qualifications
— they must be employed in government or public interest jobs that make
substantial use of their law degrees and receive salaries of $58,000 or less
— can have up to $100,000 paid by Boalt over a period up to 10 years.
Public interest lawyers who make more than $58,000 can have a portion of their
loan forgiven.

In a summer 2006 newsletter message, Edley noted that the school, as promised,
had “completed the first, critical phase of renovating our financial aid
programs by completely overhauling the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP).
This program supports graduating students who want to take low-paying public
sector and public interest jobs by assuming a portion of their law school loan
payments.”

The changes “will give Boalt the most generous loan forgiveness program
of any leading law school, with the possible exception of Yale (which we don’t
really count, because they have enough money to be admitted to the G-8).”
The money is coming from a combination of professional degree fees paid by all
Boalt students and by alumni donations.

Carl Monk, executive director of AALS, said Boalt is not alone among law schools
trying to ensure career choice options in an era of skyrocketing tuition and
other law school costs. “The trend is growing,” he said. While he
had no statistics to back his claim, he said he regularly talks to deans or
faculty working to introduce or expand loan forgiveness programs. “Schools
certainly want graduates who want to go into public interest law to be able
to do that,” said Monk. “There are clearly segments of our society
with unmet legal services needs, and we want to encourage as many of our best
and brightest students as possible to go into public interest work. We believe
that all people should have equal access to top-quality legal services.”

Laurent Heller, director of strategic planning at Boalt, said the last few
decades have seen huge increases in the cost of a legal education while incomes
associated with public interest and public service jobs have not kept pace.
“We want to make sure our students have freedom of career choice and that
debt doesn’t force them to choose a career that isn’t in line with
their interests or where their heart lies,” he said. Boalt Hall students
who are California residents pay more than $25,000 in fees and spend an average
of another $21,000 for books, supplies and living expenses per year. Nonresident
students pay an additional $12,245 in tuition.

The efforts to make it easier for students to choose nonprofit legal services
jobs come as California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George is working
to provide, through an initial pilot program, legal aid attorneys for poor people
not just in criminal cases, but in civil cases such as child custody disputes
and evictions.

While California has one lawyer for every 240 people, there is only one legal
aid attorney for every 8,373 poor people.